Most travelers are looking forward for their holidays to take photos of breath-taking nature, awesome beaches or impressive architecture, so do I. But I never wait until arriving, but take out my camera, once I get the first glimpse of the destination through the tiny window of the plane.

I LOVE AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS!

These are the 10 best aerial photographs, which I have taken during my one year world tour all around Asia, Australia, South-Pacific, USA, Carribean and Europe. Be kind, as I am not a photographer, nor do I have any photoshop skills, I simply love to capture the scenery from the air.

Nevertheless, here are 4 valueable tips for your next trip to take aerial photographs like this yourself.

How to take awesome aerial photographs – 4 TIPS:

Always request a window seat.

For trips to islands/atolls/lagoons, definitely ask at the check-in which side will help you capture the view of the island before landing. Normally it is only ONE side of the plane and the other side may only show you blue ocean. If you forget to ask, you will remember my tip and while sitting regretfully you will be stuck listening to the „oohs“ and „aahs“ of the other lucky passengers who did, and who will be taking pictures of a lifetime.-> Then: Ask the stewardess which side of the plane to sit for the departure.

Check your window for a spot without scratches. Then press your camera against the window (touch it with your lense, no distance), stabilize by holding with both hands, and don´t zoom (too much) for a better focus (you can zoom in later on your computer). The spots, you might see at my pictures are from unclean or scratched windows. I left them as they are, as I mentioned before the pics are not photoshopped.

Get a good camera and through away your 50-bucks-pocket cam. No need to have a full professional DSLR at all. A good semi-professional and affordable cam will do and will also be more handy to stabilize the cam at the window.

All photos in this blog are taken with this camera, actually they are taken with the older model of this series, but you should get the newest version, which has even more awesome functions now.

While most people probably love #1 the most (that´s why I chose it to be #1, just tried to be objective, and YES I have to agree, it looks super awesome), I was litearally blown away seeing the unusual scenery of #3, with its dry, hilly landscape, few trees making some green spots within, it was just unreal, seeing this while approaching for the landing. Or #4, the shiny neon green water of this lagoon is simply incredible. I have never seen such things before I went on my world tour and you only have these beautiful sceneries from the air.

Which one do you like most?

#10 Aitutaki, Cook Islands

# 9 Singapore

#8 Raiatea, French Polynesia

#7 Ko Samui, Thailand

#6 New York, USA

#5 Berlin, Germany

#4 Maupiti, French Polynesia

#3 Tel Aviv, Israel

#2 Huahine, French Polynesia

#1 Bora Bora, French Polynesia

How about you? Do you have such aerial photographs as well???

If you have any more awesome aerial pics, then please send them to me via Facebook and I will post them on my Fanpage or make a new blog post of them.

If you like this post, please share it and like my FB page.

As already mentioned, no need for a heavy DSLR, an awesome semi-professional cam like mine, will do, so take some awesome aerial photographs on your next travel, if you never did. In preparation for your next trip you also might want to check out this article.

Good travels!

Cheers!

PS: This is the aerial view of my lovely hometown, Cologne in Germany. Pretty awesome as well I think.

PPS:

This one didnt make it into the top 10, kind of unspectacular I think? It´s because the planes are coming in here very low, so I couldnt really take a nice aerial pic.

But the pics from the ground are even more mind blowing, because this is the